Friday, December 9, 2016

1475: Seventy eight year old Italian artist Paolo Uccello
passed away. Like many artists of his time, Uccello produced what today would
be called anti-Semitic art.Among his
works was “Miracle of the Host”

1508: The League of Cambrai is formed by Pope Julius II,
Louis XII of France, Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Ferdinand II of
Aragon as an alliance against Venice. From a Jewish point of view, this item
presents a mixed bag. Ferdinand ruled over a kingdom that had expelled its Jews
and was home to the inquisition. But Pope Julius employed a Jewish physician,
Samuel Sarfatti and practiced a policy of “benign neglect” when it came to
dealing with the Jewish people. While Venice had enacted its share of
ant-Jewish laws (and in 1516 would create the first Ghetto), it was a better
place for Jews to settle than other parts of Europe. This is attested to by the
fact that many of the Sephardim who had been expelled from Spain made their new
home in the city of canals, including Isaac Abravanel.

1768: Birthdate of “Christian Orientalist and theologian
Ernst Friedrich Karl Rosenmuller” who among other things “brought out a pocket
edition of the Hebrew Bible in 1822.”

1675: A German Jew, Alexander Polak, became a citizen of The
Hauge. He was the progenitor of the Polak Daniels family, and gave the
congregation a cemetery in 1697.

1773(25th of Kislev, 5534): Chanukah

1774: After just a little over three months of Austrian rule,
General Gabriel Freiherr von Spleny reported on the conditions at Czernowitz
including a description of the Jewish population whose presence in the city
dated back to the 15th century during the reign of Moldavian Prince
Alexander the Good.

1776: Birthdate of Abraham Mendelssohn, the son of Moses
Mendelssohn and the father of Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn. A successful banker,
he would change his name to Abraham Ernst Mendelssohn Bartholdy and change his
religion to Christianity. "Once I was the son of a famous father, now I am
the father of a famous son."

1803(25th of Kislev, 5564): Chanukah

1804: Birthdate of German mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob
Jacobi. Jacobi was the German mathematician who, with the independent work of
Niels Henrik Abel of Norway, founded the theory of elliptic functions. He also
worked on Abelian functions and discovered the hyperelliptic functions. Jacobi
applied his work in elliptic functions to number theory. He also investigated
mathematical analysis and geometry. Jacobi carried out important research in
partial differential equations of the first order and applied them to the
differential equations of dynamics. His work on determinants is important in
dynamics and quantum mechanics and he studied the functional determinant now
called the Jacobian. He passed away in 1851.

1814: Birthdate of Sebastian Brunner, the Benedictine trained
priest who was one of a group of authors including Anton E. von Roasa, Count
Ferdinand Schirnding and Albert Wiesinger and who launched a libel case against
Ignaz Kuranda and Heinrich Graetz.

1816: Birthdate of Dr. Albert Lowey, the rabbi who led the
West London Synagogue of British Jews, the “first reform synagogue in England.”

1817: Mississippi was admitted to the union as the 20th
state. The Jewish community in Mississippi dates back to the 1840’s. There are
Jewish houses of worship and cemeteries dotted in many towns across the state
including Jackson, the state capital, Greenwood and Vicksburg. The Museum of
the Southern Jewish Experience (MSJE) is located in Utica, Mississippi. Utica
is also the home to Henry S. Jacobs Camp, the summer destination for thousands
of southern Jewish youngsters in the last forty years. The Mississippi Jewish
community has produced several prominent individuals including Shelby Foote and
Rabbi Fred Davidow.

1826 (10 Kislev 5587): Rabbi Dovber of Lubavitch was released
from prison after being arrested the week after Sukkot on slander charges.

1836: Emory College was chartered in Oxford, Georgia. Today
Emory University is located in Atlanta, Georgia. One third of the undergraduate
student body is Jewish and in 2005 Hillel received a three million dollar grant
to upgrade its services and facilities on campus. The university offers a two
year graduate degree in Jewish Studies.

1848: Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte won a four-way race and was
elected President of France today.

1850: Judah Leib "Leopold" Löw was installed as the
rabbi at Szeged, Hungary

1851: At Friedland, Germany Miriam Lessler and Wolf Schreier
gave birth to Eugene Schreier who was married Martha Kasprowicz and who was the
“first president of the reorganized Congregation Jeshuat Israel” for which he
procured a charter from the State of Rhode Island in 1894.

1854: In Berlin tax-collector Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig
Henrici and his wife Wilhelmine gave birth to Carl Ernst Julius Henrici the
anti-Semitic leader who founded the Social Nazi Party in 1881

1855(1st of Tevet, 5616): Rosh Chodesh Tevet

1855: Birthdate of Mrs. James (Selina) Levi. The Dubuque
native was the daughter of the founder of Iowa Jewry and one time held the
record for being the oldest Jewish woman born in the Hawkeye State.

1858: The Executive Committee of the Representatives of the
United Congregations of Israelites of the City of New York sent a letter to
President James Buchanan which described a public meeting held on December 4 in
which Jews and non-Jews gathered to demand the return of Edgardo Mortara to his
parents. Those attending the meeting also petitioned the President to join with
the several European nations who were protesting the kidnapping of the
youngster by representatives of the Pope. This letter was a follow-up to a
communication sent by the same group on November 20, 1858.

1858: Caleb Lyon delivered his second lecture on The Holy
Land under the auspices of the Mercantile Library Association at Clinton Hall
this evening. His lecture included a description of the mountains of Moab, the
Dead Sea and “the silvery Jordan River.” He described his trip to Jerusalem
which he said was populated by six thousand Jews as well as a visit to the
Siloam Springs, the Wailing Wall and attendance at a Jewish wedding.

1861: An article entitled “Sold by a Jew Peddler” reported
that John H. Bornisky had filed a complaint before Judge Osborne claiming that
a Jewish peddler name August Seligman had sold to him seven pieces of linen,
for the sum of $38 50. The sale was made by sample, and the complainant had
paid the money upon the promise of Seligman to deliver the goods immediately.
Since the goods were not delivered Seligman was arrested and held because bail
had not been posted.

1861: Rabbi Arnold Fischel arrived in Washington, D.C. this
evening. He hopes to meet with government leaders including President Lincoln
in an attempt to change the law so that Jews can serve as chaplains with the
Union Army.

1861: Moses Grinnell writes a letter of introduction to
President Lincoln on behalf of Rabbi Arnold Fischel.

“Sir, permit me to present to you Rev .Dr. Fischell of this
city who visits Washington as a delegate from the Board of Delegates of
American Israelites, having been selected as chaplain to the Jews of the army
around Washington estimated at about 8000. Dr. Fischell is of high literary
abilities and greatly esteemed by distinguished men of all religious
denimonations. Believe me, etc.”

1864: Sherman’s Union Army reaches Savannah in what history
will call “Sherman’s March to the Sea.” Among those with Sherman was Major
General Frederick Knefler. The native of Hungary was the highest ranking Jewish
officer in the Union Army. He was commander of the 79th Indiana regiment before
he was promoted to brigadier general for his performance at the Battle of
Chickamauga and then to major general during his service with Sherman on his
march through Georgia.

1865: The reign of Leopold I, the first King of the Belgians,
who was friendly enough with the Rothschilds to have stayed with Carl von
Rothschild at his villa in Naples came to an end today.

1869: Ellen Cohen, the daughter of Louis Cohen and Samuel
Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling gave birth Louis Samuel Montague, the 2nd
Baron of Sawyling, “the merchant banker and communal leaders who “in 1911
became the first professing Jew to inherit a peerage and a seat in the House of
Lords..

1870: It was reported today that ground has been broken for a
new synagogue located at Lexington and 55th in Manhattan. Henry Fernbach who
was the architect for the 34th and 44th street synagogues as well as one of the
architects who worked on Temple Emmanuel, designed this building which he
estimates will cost $180,000, [Today this synagogue is the Central Synagogue
which was formed from the merger in 1898 of Shar HaShomayim (meaning Gate of
Heaven), founded in 1839 by German Jews, and Ahawath Chesed (meaning Love of
Mercy), founded in 1846 by Bohemian Jews. Its name was changed to Central
Synagogue in 1920 symbolizing not only its location, but also its change to
Reform Judaism.”]

1871: In Leipzig, Henriette Goldschmidt “founded the
Association for Family and Popular Education (Verein für Familien- und Volkserziehung) today.

1871: It was reported today that the Jewish Messenger has a published “a very discriminating criticism
on the character of Shylock as a representative of the Hebrew nation.”
According to the Messenger, “as an embodiment of the Jewish people Shylock
stands forth strong in his love of religion, family and neighbors but impotent
to remonstrate against injustice or to resent it.”

1874: During today’s meeting of the Board of Alderman in New
York, a resolution authorizing the Hebrew Benevolent Orphan Society to sub-let
the property they obtained from the City was referred to the Committee on Law.

1875: Today’s session of the Hebrew Charity Fair which closed
at 4 o’clock because of erev Shabbat raised $1,155.65.

1876(24th of Kislev, 5637): In the evening, kindle the first
Chanukah light.

1876: It was reported today that the Purim Association will
manage the upcoming Hebrew Charity Ball which is fund raiser for the United
Hebrew Charities.

1876: It was reported today that New York’s Hebrew Free
School Association is serving 580 students and that the association’s President
has announced that additional efforts will be made to provide more facilities
for the youngsters.

1876: Rabbi Lukskar officiated at the funeral of 27 year old
Abraham Stettaner (sp) at the Cypress Hills Cemetery. He was one of the victims
of the Brooklyn Theatre Fire.

1879: The New York Times publishes a lengthy article about
the history of Chanukah which begins with the erroneous statement, “The Jewish
feast called Chanukah or the Feast of Dedication will be honored by the adherents
of the ancient faith on the 16th.” On the evening of December 16th, Jews will
be lighting the 8th candle

1879(25th of Kislev, 5640): First Day of Chanukah

1880: It was reported today that a fundraiser is to be held
to benefit the 44th Street Synagogue.

1881: It was reported today that the Young Men’s Hebrew
Association is planning on hosting a ball in celebration of Chanukah at the
Academy of Music that will feature several tableaus depicting events in Jewish
history.

1881: In Brooklyn, the fair sponsored by Temple Israel which
opened on November 30 is scheduled to close this evening.

1882: The annual meeting of the Hebrew Free School
Associations is scheduled to take place at ten o’clock this morning in
Manhattan.

1882: It was reported today that Alfred Steckler has obtained
an injunction preventing the police from arresting several Jewish shopkeepers
and workers for violating the Sunday Closing Laws.The injunctions were based on Section 264 of
the Penal Code which permits people to work on the first day of the week if
they “uniformly keep another day of the week as holy time” and that their labor
does not disturb those “observing the first day of the week as holy time.”(In our world where everything it is 24-7-365
it seems hard to remember that Sunday Closing Laws were the norm and vestiges
of them still exist such as the prohibition on buying and selling vehicles in
Iowa on Sunday.)

1884: It was reported today that the state of Connecticut has
had a law on the books “designed to exempt Jews and Seventh Day Baptists who
conscientiously observed Saturday as a day of religious worship from the
penalties apply to a violation of Sunday laws.

1888: “He Wants To Be A Boss” published today described moves
by Ernst Nathan to take control of “the Republican machine in Kings County
(NY)” by asserting his role to dispense patronage following the election of
Benjamin Harrison to the Presidency of the United States.

1889: In Brooklyn, founding of Congregation Mikro Kodesh
Anshey Klodower which was served by Rabbi S.L. Westman and President Jonas
Cohn.

1889: In the U.K. Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, and
Alice Edith Cohen gave birth to Gerald Rufus Isaacs, 2nd Marquess of Reading
the WW I veteran, British barrister and MP who was the son-in-law of Alfred
Moritz Mond and the father-in-law of Solly Zuckerman.

1889: It was reported today that the Montefiore Home Fair of
1887 which raised $158,000 was the most successful fundraiser sponsored by the
Jewish community to date.

1889: It was reported today that this year’s Hebrew
Educational Fair is being sponsored by the Hebrew Free School Association, the
Aguilar Free Library and the Young Men’s Hebrew Association. Funds raised
during this two long event will go the Hebrew Institute.

1890: In London, The Lord Mayor presided over a meeting at
the Guildhall today “to consider the condition of the Jews in Russia and to take
action to secure some alleviation of their distress.”

1890: A benefit performance of the play “Ein Konigreich um
ein Kind” presented by Amberg’s company “for the benefit of the building fund
of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Orphan Asylum” will take place tonight at New
York’s Lexington Avenue Opera House.

1890: The forty-piece juvenile orchestra of the Hebrew Orphan
Asylum performed at the Teacher’s Bazaar, an event designed to raise funds for
teachers’ pensions.

1890: In New York the State Senate Committee on Finance whose
members included Jacob Cantor met today to “consider what disposition should be
made of the 121 acres of land on Ward’s Island” which had been the entry point
for untold thousands of immigrants including Jews from Russia and Poland.

1890: In New York, William Lesser who was accompanied by
Jacob Finkelstone of the United Hebrew Charities Organization, identified the
corpse of Maximillian Laski just before it was about to be dissected in the
amphitheater of the University Medical School

1891: Birthdate of Nelly Sachs. Born in Berlin, Sachs was a
German poet and dramatist who was transformed by the Nazi experience from a
dilettante into a poignant spokesperson for the grief and yearnings of her
fellow Jews. Sachs found sanctuary in Sweden in 1940. When, with Shmuel Yosef
Agnon, she was awarded the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature, she observed that
Agnon represented Israel whereas "I represent the tragedy of the Jewish
people." She passed away in 1970 and was buried in Sweden.

1891: Sixty-three year old Abraham Kuenen, “a Dutch
Protestant theologian” who specialized in the Hebrew Bible including as can be
seen by his text on the Hexateuch” passed away today at Leiden.

1891: “Our Foreign Relations” published today noted that
President Harrison’s “references to the persecution and expulsion of the
Russian Jews are just and temperate.” The President showed a “practical as well
as a humane and sympathetic interest in persuading” to “abate her cruelties”
when dealing with the Jews.

1892: Lucius Weinschenk, a member of the firm of Bryan,
Weinschenk & Hirschel and prominent member of the Chicago Jewish country
fled the United States “leaving a shortage in his accounts…of about $20,000.”

1893: Professor Felix Adler delivered an address at Carnegie
Hall this morning on the teachings of Jesus Christ which began with a
comparison between Jesus and “the older prophets of Israel.”

1893: Rabbi Gustav Gottheil delivered a sermon this morning
at Temple Emanu-El on “Who Are the Enemies of Judaism?”

1894: “Cheap Loans A Success” published today described the
activity of the Provident Society, which had been established to lend money to
the needy at a rate far below of the pawnshops whose founders included August
Belmont and Jacob Schiff, had made half of its loans to Jews with the rest
going mostly to “Americans and Germans.”

1895: Today, twenty-four women organized the Tri-City Section
of the National Council of Women which included Davenport Port, Iowa, Rock Island,
Illinois and Moline, Illinois.

1895: Large crowds visited all of the booths and displays at
the Hebrew Fair in New York City. Isaacs S. Isaacs is editor in chief of the
Fair Journal. Rebecca Kohut is the business manager of the Fair Journal.

1896: A secretary for President-elect William McKinley wrote
a letter to Rabbi Emanuel Schwab in response to one that Rabbi Schwab had sent
to him congratulating McKinley on his election and telling the former Civil War
major that he had voted for him.

1897(15th of Kislev, 5658): Charles Louis Fleischmann passed
away. Born in 1835, he “was an innovative manufacturer of yeast and other
consumer food products during the 19th Century. In the late 1860s, he and his
brother Maximilian created America’s first commercially produced yeast, which
revolutionized baking in a way that made today’s mass production and
consumption of bread possible.”

1898: The Treaty of Paris is signed, officially ending the
Spanish-American War. Following the war, a number of Jewish veterans settled in
Cuba. By 1904, they were able to establish a synagogue in Havana.

1899: The National Jewish Hospital for Treatment of
Consumptives opened today in Denver, Colorado.

1901: The first Nobel Prizes were awarded. In 1905, Adolph
von Baeyer, a German chemist, became the first Jew to win a Nobel Prize. He won
it in Chemistry for his work in synthesizing dye indigo.

1903: “The Early and the Girl” a two-act musical comedy for
which Jerome Kern would write the song “How’d you like to spoon with me?”
opened at the Adelphi Theatre in London.

1903(21st of Kislev, 5664): Fifty-three year old
Baron Arthur de Rothschild, a member of the French branch of the famous banking
family who collected stamps, was an active yachtsman and who bequeathed part of
his art collection to the Louvre passed away today in Monte Carlo.

1904: In New York City, Eugene E. Sperry and Rosalie Stanton
Bloomingdale gave birth to Josephine Bloomingdale Sperry.

1905: The Jews of Manchester, England called for a meeting to
publicly protest the treatment of Russian Jews as typified by the Kishinev
Pogroms.

1905: “Five hundred Jews who fled from Russia because of the
massacres arrived” in New York today aboard two separate steamships and are
awaiting approval from the immigration authorities to enter the United States.

1905: The Janitors’ Society held a meeting at the Educational
Alliance auditorium tonight and “took up a collection for the relief of the
Jews sufferers in Russia.”

1905: It was reported today that $1,111,183 has been
contributed to the fund for the Jews suffering from the Massacres in Russia
including $100 from I. Gothstein of Muscatine, Iowa, $500 from G.A. Efroymson
of Indianapolis, Indiana, $1,547.84 from Leo K. Steiner of Birmingham, Alabama
and $100.50 from Herman J. Nathanson of Virginia, Minnesota.

1906: Albert Lowey, the retired Rabbi of the West London
Synagogue of British Jews, “the first reform synagogue in England” celebrated
his 90th birthday today “in the full possession of his mental
faculties.”

1906: U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt wins the Nobel Peace
Prize, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize. Roosevelt never
intended to keep the money that was part of the prize. Finally, in 1918, he was
able to donate the money to a variety of charities. Among those receiving funds
was the Jewish Welfare Board, which received $4,000 for War Activities. The
funds were to be handled by the treasurer, Mr. Walter E. Sachs.

1907: Birthdate of Michael Blankfort, the New York native who
gained fame as the author and screenwriter who converted his novel The
Juggler into of the earliest Holocaust movies, “The Juggler” and who risked
his career to see to it that the Blacklisted Albert Maltz was able to continue
his career as a screenwriter.

1910(9th of Kislev, 5671): Seventy-seven year old Michael
Friedländer passed away.Born in Posen,
and educated in Germany, he moved to England in 1865 when he back principal of
Jews’ College in London, a position he held until three years before his death.His English translation of Maiimonides’ Guide
to the Perplexed is considered to be a classic.He was the father-in-law of Moses Gaster.

1914:
Under the caption “The Kaiser’s American Agents,” The Times of London
printed a letter from Israel Zangwill in which he wrote “I should add that
since receiving Sir Edward Grey’’s assurance that England’s sympathies lay with
the emancipation of the Russian Jews I have had a number of applications from
Jews – Rumanian and English as well as Russian Jews living outside of Russia –
anxious to enlist in the Jewish Territorial Organization under the idea that is
a branch of the British Army.” (Gray was the British Foreign Minister who is
credited with the lines as he walked out of his ministry on the evening that
Britain declared war on Germany – "The lamps are going out all over
Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our life-time.”

1915: Moise Cohen of Constantinople was appointed professor
of finance at Ottoman University.

1916: Sir Edward Grey, who in 1914 when asked by MP Herbert
Samuel “about a homeland for the Jewish people” replied “that the idea had
always had a strong sentimental appeal to him and he would be prepared to work
for if the opportunity arose” completed his 11 years of services Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs.

1916: Alfred Mond began serving as First Commissioner of
Works under Prime Minister David Lloyd George.

1917(25th of Kislev, 5678): First Day of Chanukah

1917: Today, “Andrew Bonar Law, Chancellor of the Exchequer,
announced in the House of Commons today that Jerusalem after being surrounded
on all sides by British troops, had surrendered and that British, French and
Mohammedan representatives were on the way to Jerusalem to safeguard the holy
places.”

1917: “There was an outburst of applause which lasted for
several minutes” today at the gathering of those leaders working to raise the
five million dollar fund for Jewish war relief and welfare work in the Army and
Navy when Henry Morgenthau talked about the “recapture of Jerusalem from the
Turks” saying that “We ought to be particularly happy today, for apart from all
political considerations the capture of Jerusalem by the English is a momentous
occasion in the history of the Jews.

1917: As of today the team contributions made to the fund for
the Jewish War Relief and Welfare Work in the Army and Navy included
$231,888.00 from Mortimer L. Schiff’s Team 22, $179.026.00 from H.D. Rosen’s Team 18,
$177,483.70 from William Goldman’s Team 4 and $173,798.00 from S. G. Rosenbaum’s
Team 19

1920: In Chechelnyk, Podolia, a shtetl in what is today
Ukraine Pinkhas Lispector and Mania Krimgold Lispector gave birth to Chaya
Lispector, the youngest of their three daughters, “the Brazilian author” whom
some describe as “the most important Jewish writer since Franz Kafka.”

1922: Due to travel problems, Albert Einstein was unable to
attend the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony and deliver his Nobel Lecture.

1923: Dr. Arthur Ruppin tells the Keren Hayesod Council that
“the housing shortage in Palestine has been relieved to a considerably extent
by the establishment of the General Mortgage Bank of Palestine, which has
invested more than $300,000 in mortgages, enabling the construction of 300
houses, chiefly in Tel-Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa and Tiberias.”

1923: Birthdate of Harold Gould. Born Harold Goldstein, Gould
is one of those character actors whose face you know but name you don’t. One of
his more memorable roles came in Paul Newman/Robert Redford hit, The Sting.

1926: In Hamburg, Germany, Solomon Birnbaum, the son of
Nathan Birnbaum, and his wife gave birth to Jacob (Yaakov) Birnbuam who
survived the Holocaust thanks to the Kindertransport and formed the Student
Struggle for Soviet Jewry”

1927: Seymour “Cy” Schindel fought his 20th bout
which would prove to be his last victory even though he fought three more times
before retiring.

1927: Birthdate of Danny Matt, the native of Cologne who made
Aliyah in 1934 and in 1943 began a military career that stretched from the
Jewish Brigade through the Yom Kippur and led him to the stars of a general in
the IDF.

1929: Twenty year old flyweight Moe Mizler fought his 36th
bout which he lost on points.

1930: As the U.S. economy moved further into what we now call
The Great Depression, the savings bank in which many members of the Sephardic
Jewish Brotherhood in New York had placed their money closed and no funds were
made available to depositors. The collection of dues began to fall off at an
alarming rate, and there was a high demand for financial aid from the Secret
Relief Fund.

1931: “Baron De Hirsch Centenary” published today traces the
life of Jewish philanthropist who is all but unknown to modern generations.

1931: U.S. Premiere of “The Struggle” based on a novel by
Emile Zola, the defender of Capt. Dreyfuswhich was filmed by cinematographer Joseph Ruttenberg.

1931: U.S. premiere of “Men in Her Life” a drama with a
script co-authored by Robert Riskin.

1934: Birthdate of Howard Martin Temin. Temin was American
virologist who in 1975 shared the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with
his former professor Renato Dulbecco and another of Dulbecco's students, David
Baltimore, for his co-discovery of the enzyme reverse transcriptase. In 1961,
Temin's formed a provirus hypothesis that cancer cells affect genetic material.
The protein coat of certain viruses contains an enzyme that facilitates the
copying of viral genes into the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) of the host cell.
In 1970 he and Baltimore both independently isolated the enzyme, now called
reverse transcriptase. The viruses that contain the enzyme are known as
retroviruses. Temin also investigated how genetic information in the provirus
transforms a normal animal cell into a tumor cell. He passed away in 1994.

1934: A dramatization of Charge It to Me written by
Sara Smith, who “learned Yiddish to become a newspaperwoman” is scheduled to
open today in Baltimore under the name “Pied Piper.”

1934: Birthdate of Ryszard Przecicki, who as Richard J.
Pratt, became one of the richest men in Australia.

1936: Jewish settlers erected the first of the “Tower and
Stockade” settlements,Tel Amel which is now known Nir David. These settlements
on remote parcels of land purchased by the Jewish National Fund were set up
overnight with the help of prefabricated towers and walls. They were usually
put up overnight with the help of hundreds of volunteers. Eventually 118 of
this type of settlement were erected throughout the Galilee, Bet-She'an Valley
and the Jordan Valley. The secretive construction method was one way of
avoiding Arab attacks.

1936: In Jerusalem, at the morning session of the royal
commission, Earl Peel, the chairman said that in his “opinion the Jewish Agency
should have pressed its claim for State domains to which it is entitled according
to the mandate” while Dr. Maurice B. Hexter “said that in the last six or seven
years he did not recall that any pressured was exerted by the Jews on the
Palestine Government in connection with the mandatory’s duty to allot suitable
portions of State domains for Jewish coloniziation.” (Translation – the mandatory
government did not give the Jews the arable land to which they were legally
entitled.)

1937: The Palestine
Post reported on the brazen attack carried out in the heart of Haifa's
Hadar Hacarmel. An Arab terrorist first exploded a bomb and then fired two
shots, seriously wounding 13-year-old Elimelech Gromet. Another bomb was thrown
in the Tel Arza quarter of Jerusalem, next to the Weismann carpentry.

1937: The Palestine Post reported that Sir Charles Teggart,
who won his reputation as an indefatigable anti-terrorist fighter in Bengal,
arrived in Jerusalem, to advise the government and police on new anti-terrorist
tactics.

1937(6th of Tevet, 5698): Eighty-one year old
Abraham Isaak the Russian born anarchist who worked as a journalist and founded
Aurora Colony with his in California which was based on his anarchist belief

1938: Thanks to the effort of Mrs. Gertruida Wijsmuller-Meijer,
a Dutch organizer of Kindertransporte, who had been active in this field since
1937,” a train filled with 600 children left Vienna today.

1939: Friedrich Ubelhor, governor of the Kalisz-Lodz
district, issued a secret order for the establishment of a ghetto in the
northern section of Lodz, where the Jewish Baluty slum quarter was situated.
"Needless to say [stated his order] the establishment of a ghetto is only
a provisional phase...the ultimate goal must be the total purge of this scourge."

1941: In the dark days of WW II, Japanese bombers sank the
HMS Prince of Wales and the HMS Repulse, the last major battleships that would
be able to standup to an invasion of Australia, which had sent most of its
troops to the Middle East to fight against the Nazis.

1941: As of today, in the last 100 days an additional 600
Jews had been shot to death in and near the city of Liepāja

1942: The Polish ambassador to Britain informs Foreign
Secretary Anthony Eden that the Polish government-in-exile can confirm that the
German authorities are systematically exterminating the entire Jewish
population of Poland and the rest of Europe.

1943: As Soviet troops began to break through German lines,
the Germans (and local Rumanians) tried cover up their actions by killing the
surviving inmates of the labor camp and destroying the camp itself in Tarasika
Rumania. This type of action was repeated over and over as Soviet troops moved
toward Germany.

1945: "The Chalice of Nurnberg," published today by
Time described the purposed of the
trials in the words US. Prosecutor Robert Jackson who defined the need for
individual responsibility and the establishment of a rule of International Law
that would prevent such crimes from happening again

1945: “Treason: The Seeker” published today described the
condition Ezra Pound, the expatriate American poet who relished giving
anti-Semitic and anti-American broadcast from his home in Italy.The latter earned him the dubious distinction
of being one of the few Americans indicted for treason because of his radio
broadcasts.

1945: President Truman names six U.S. members to
Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry on Palestine. London announces six members

1945: SS Captain Theodore Dannecker, a henchman of Adolf Eichmann
committed suicide after having been arrested by the United States Army.

1946: Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver criticizes President Truman,
expresses his opposition to Partition and recommends resistance to the British
Mandatory Government.

1947: British leaders will not alter the Jewish quota that
limits the Jewish immigrants 1,500 a month.

1947: Dr. Gerty Theresa Radnitz Cori became the first Jewish
woman, as well as the first American woman, to win a Nobel Prize in the
sciences when she received the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine on. She
won the prize jointly with her husband, Dr. Carl F. Cori, and Bernardo A.
Houssay. The scientists were honored for their research in identifying the
"Cori Cycle" which explained how the body converts carbohydrates into
sugars that supply muscles with energy. This research was particularly
important in leading to the understanding and treatment of diabetes. Dr. Gerty
Cori was born in Prague in 1896. Encouraged by her family, she enrolled at the
Medical School of the German University of Prague, receiving her Doctorate in
Medicine in 1920. Together with her husband, Cori immigrated to the United
States and became a citizen in 1928. Carl took a position at the State Institute
for the Study of Malignant Diseases in Buffalo, NY and Gerty was hired as an
assistant pathologist. The Coris persisted in working together despite the
discouragement of many institutions that sought to hire only Carl. In 1931,
they moved to St. Louis where Carl became the chair of the pharmacology
department at Washington University School of Medicine. Gerty was offered a
position as a research assistant. When Carl was made chair of a new
biochemistry department in 1946, Gerty was finally promoted to full professor.
They won the Nobel Prize the following year. In 1952, President Truman
appointed her to the Board of Directors of the National Science Foundation.

1947: A detachment of Palmach soldiers was attacked while
paroling the water pipeline near the Arab village of Shu’ut in the Negev. The
commander of the Palmach assured his men that they had nothing to worry about
since the head man of the village had been a friend of his. But in the Arab’s
undeclared war on the yet to be born Jewish state, friendships did not always
matter.

1948: Speaking in the House of Commons as leader of the
Opposition, Winston Churchill raised the question of why the British government
continued to refuse to recognize the state of Israel since nineteen other
countries including the United States and the Soviet Union had already done so.
He appeals to Parliament to end its “sulky boycott” of the Jewish state

1948: Despite opposition from some of his ministers, Ben
Gurion pressured the cabinet into committing to move the Israeli government to
Jerusalem “without further delay.” Ben Gurion dismissed the fears of his
opponents that the move would anger world opinion by pointing out that the
occupation of the Old City and the West Bank by the Jordanians had changed the
equation.

1948: Israel agrees to UN truce mission's request to let a
trapped Egyptian force withdraw from Faluja in Negev. Was it only 6 months ago
that the Egyptians invaders were bombing Tel Aviv and heading toward the
“Jewish city” with the intent of driving the Jews into the sea.

1948: The Israelis devised Operation Horev, a new offensive
plan designed to drive the Egyptian army out of the remaining areas of
Mandatory Palestine south-west of Beersheba, along the western edge of the
Negev.

1948: Moshe “Dayan gave a sealed letter to Abdullah el-Tell
to be delivered to King Abdullah. Before delivering the letter el-Tell
discreetly lifted the seal and made a photo-static copy of its contents, which
was an invitation from Elias Sasson to King Abdullah to restart the
negotiations which had been led by Golda Meir before the outbreak of war

1949: Birthdate of Harry Michael, a Labour Party MP, critic
of Israel and according to the Daily Telegraph, “one of the MPs who alledgedly
made improper claims for expenses.”

1950: Ralph J. Bunche was presented the Nobel Peace Prize.
Bunche was the first black American to receive the award. He was honored for
bringing an end to the war between the Israelis and the Arabs that began in
1948 when the Arabs began their unsuccessful attempt to drive the Jews into the
sea.

1952: Yosef Sprinzak, the first Speaker of the Knesset,
completed his service as President of Israel which had begun following the
death of Chaim Weizmann.

1952: The Jerusalem Post reported that at the end of the
30-day mourning period for the first president of the State of Israel, Dr.
Chaim Weizmann, his successor, Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, took the pledge of office.

1955(25th of Kislev, 5716): Chanukah

1955: “An Israeli police approaching the Sea of Galilee’s
northwestern shored was fired on by Syrian guns” in the latest of a series of
Syrian violations of the truce agreement.

1961: Birthdate of Oded Schramm, who melded ideas from two
branches of mathematics into an equation that applies to a multitude of physics
problems from the percolation of water through rocks to the tangling of
polymers.

1963: In Chamberlin v Dade County Board, the Florida State
Supreme Court heard “new arguments in a challenge to public school students in
Miami, Florida, being required to read passages from the Bible and recite the
Lord's Prayer at the beginning of every school day” (As reported by Austin
Cline)

1964: In Israel, the government resigned when “Ben-Gurion
demanded that members of the Supreme Court Investigate the Lavon Affair.

1965: Birthdate of “Gary “The Kid” Jacobs the Scottish boxer
who “wore a Star of David on his trunaks and who “held the British Commonwealth
and European (EBU) welterweight titles.”

1966: “A musical version of the Mossinsohn play, ‘Casablan’ starring
Yehoram Gaon, opened today on the Alhambra Stage in Tel Aviv.”

1967: “Bedazzled,” a comedy directed and produced by Stanley
Donen was released in the United Kingdom today.

1969: “They Shoot Horses, Don't They?” a movie version of the
novel of the same name directed by Sydney Pollack, produced by Robert Chartoff
and Irwin Winkler and featuring Al Lewis was released in the United States
today.

1970: A small group of local Jewish activists gathered on the
International Union of Electrical Workers plaza which was across the street
from the Soviet Embassy. The group was protesting the verdicts of treason and
death sentences of 11 Soviet citizens, 9 of them Jewish.

1970: First Human Rights Day on which “a daily Soviet Jewry
Vigil is launched across from the Soviet Embassy in Washington, DC” which will
last for twenty years.

1971: Dr. Gunter Kahn and one of his colleagues “went to
Upjohn’s headquarters in Kalamazoo where they briefed scientists and
executives” on minoxidil telling “them that he drug was a potential ‘gold
mine.’”

1972: U.S. premiere of “Sleuth” the film version of Anthony
Shaffer’s Tony Award winning play directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz.

1972(5th of Tevet, 5733): Forty-seven year old
Tibor Szamuely, the Russian born English historian who was the nephew of Tibor
Szamuely and the father of journalist George Szamuely, passed away today.

1976: The KGB increased pressure on the organizers of the
symposium on Jewish culture by questioning “the main activists” responsible for
the event.

1978: The New York
Times features reviews of children’s books by Jewish authors and/or of
special interest to Jewish readers including “My Noah’s Ark” by M.B. Goffstein
and “Hanukah Money” by Sholem Aleichem with illustrations by Uri Shulevitz.

1978: Richard Shepard reviews “The Girl From Tel Aviv,” a
throwback to “the Yiddish musical theater of bygone years, the type of theater
that provided escapism for the Lower East Side, which always enjoyed ‘tzoress’
on stage and had more than enough of its own waiting at the exit.”

1978: In Oslo, Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat accepted the
1978 Nobel Peace Prize. The two men earned the prize for breaking the cycle of
violence. More to the point, their work has stood the test of time. These two
certainly earned their award.

1978: “Superman” the movie that brought to the big screen the
comic hero created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster and directed
by Richard Donner (born Richard Donald Schwartzberg) opened in Washington, DC
today.

1980: Future Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer began
serving as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.

1980: Two people were injured when a terrorist bomb “exploded
under a car” in Jerusalem.

1981: Jules Pfeiffer’s "Grownups" premieres in New
York NY.

1984: In “Jewish Federation Shifts Policy on Hospital Gifts”
published today Ronald Sullivan described changes the organization is making in
its distribution of five million dollars to local medical facilities

1986: Michiko Kakutani reviewed “Letters from Westerbrook”
the posthumously published diaries of Etty Hillesum that describe life in
Holland under the Nazi occupation. Westerbrook, where Miss Hillesum and a large
number of Dutch Jews were held, was, in reality a transit camp with the next
stop being Auschwitz

1994: The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Yitzhak Rabin,
Shimon Peres and Yasser Arafat. Arafat betrayed Rabin, Peres and all who
supported the peace process as can be seen by his continuing support of
violence in the Middle East up until the day of his death.

1994(7th of Tevet, 5755): Eighty-seven year old
Philip “Phil” Piratin who was one of the leaders of “Battle of Cable Street” in
1936 and one of two members of the Communist Party elected to Parliament in
1945 passed away today.

1995(17th of Kislev, 5756): Eighty-eight year old
Philip Piratin, the circulation manager of The Daily Worker who was one of the
first members of the Communist Party of Great Britain to be elected as an MP.

1996: Three hundred Palestinian students “suddenly barged
onto the walled campus of Hebron University, closed by the Israelis since last
March, and declared that they would stay until it was reopened.”

1997(11th of Kislev, 5758): Eighty-five year old
Kalmen Kaplansky who was described as"the zaideh" (grandfather) of the Canadian
human rights movement” passed away today.

2000: The New York Times book section includes a review of
Open Closed Open by Yehuda Amichai whose “poems capture the joy of ordinary
experience.”

2000: The Manhattan Theatre Club’s final performance of
“Class Act” a musical “based on the life of composer-lyricist Edward Kleban”
who had passed away in 1987 at the age of 48 took place at Stage II.

2001(25th of Kislev, 5762): Chanukah is celebrated
for the first time in post 9/11 world.

2003: “The Big Fish” a cinematic version of a novel of the
same name co-produced by Bruce Cohen was released in the United States today.

2005: Deputy Chief Gertrude D.T. Schimmel, “the second
highest ranking woman ever in the New York Police Department described her
training in 1940 when she wrote today “we didn’t box or do the two-mile rue but
other than that the police academy training for women was the same as for men.”

2005: Deputy Chief Gertrude D.T. Schimmel, “the second
highest ranking woman ever in the New York Police Department described her
support for the Knapp Commission because as she wrote today that while she was
aware that “police officers were openly accepting money” “she was steadfastly
again the taking of bribes or any other unethical behavior on the part of the
police.”

2005: The first Asiatic elephant to be conceived in Israel
through artificial insemination was born at the Tisch Family Zoological Gardens
in Jerusalem. The Biblical Zoo joined the project to preserve the Asiatic
elephant, which faces extinction, several years ago. The zoo's next goal is to
mate the still-adolescent elephant bull Teddy ­-named after Jerusalem's former
mayor, Teddy Kollek ­-with elephant cows around the world, again through
artificial insemination.

2006: Reflections from the Heart, an exhibition of the works
of CHIM (David Seymour) at the Albin O. Kuhn Library came to an end today.

2006: The curtain came down on an Off-Off-Broadway production
of “Torch Song Trilogy” starring Seth Rudetsky.

2006: Celebration of Yud-Tes Kislev, the 19th of Kislev. “The
19th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev is celebrated as the Rosh Hashanah of
Chassidism. It was on this date, in the year 1798, that the founder of Chabad
Chassidism, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi was freed from his imprisonment in
Czarist Russia. For Chassidim this event is more than a personal liberation.
They see this as a watershed event heralding a new era in the revelation of the
‘inner soul’ of Torah. This is also the celebration of the birthday of Avraham
Elimelech ben Yosef Dov, the Coca Chef.

2006: Under the title of “The Schindlers of the Middle East”
The Washington Post book section features a review of Among the Righteous: Lost
Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands by Robert Satloff.

2007: “President George W. Bush and Laura Bush invited Ruth
and Judea Pearl, parents of Daniel Pearl to the White House Chanukah reception,
to light the menorah that once belonged to Daniel's great grandparents, Chaim
and Rosa Pearl, who brought it with them when they moved from Poland to Israel
in 1924 to establish the town of Bnai-Brak.”

2007: The New Republic
features a review of The Book of Psalms: A Translation With Commentary
translated by Robert Alter. Over the centuries, The Book of Psalms has gained
popularity with a wide variety of religious groups and leaders. However, this
has led to translations and interpretations that fit their different agendas
and often has meant drifting far from the original meaning of the words. Alter
attempts to release this trend. “He has deliberately set out to evacuate these
covert (and usually christological) assumptions” that distort or completely
alter what the Psalmists actually created.

2008:J. Ezra Merkin informed investors in his $1.8 billion
Ascot Partners fund that he was among those who suffered substantial personal
losses, since all of the fund's dollars were invested with Madoff, a fact that
Merkin had tried to conceal as can be seen by his lying to a client bysaying
that he had not connection with Madoff and that the investments were with
Morgan Stanley and therefore fully protected.

2008: Baal teshuvah Andy Statman who is at home with Klezmer
and Country music joined Bela Fleck and the Fleckstone in a concert at the
University of Buffalo.

2008: The month-long exhibition “The Nature of Dreams:
Israeli photographs, selection from the collection of Yosefa Drescher Fine Art”
has its final showing at Trinity College in Hartford. Artists featured during
the exhibition included Noa Ben Shalom, David Harris, Menahem Kahana, Joel
Kantor, Alex Levac, Shimon Lev, Tamir Sher, Ilan Spira, and David Rubinger.
According to Yosefa Drescher, a well-known Israeli documentary photographer
“The land in which [Israeli photographers] live and work is replete with
gripping visual scenes, and striking images both human and landscape. The
challenge is at once to do justice to the external reality and not attempt to
usurp the power of the place and moment, while giving reign to deeply personal
comment and reaction to the subject.”

2008 (13 Kislev): On the Hebrew calendar, Yahrzeit of Ravina
II who passed away in 475 CE the same year in which he finished editing the
Gemara portion of the Talmud Bavli ("Babylonian Talmud"), completing
the work of his teacher Rav Ashi.

2008: At Princeton University, Dennis Ross former special
Middle East Coordinator under the Clinton administration and consultant for the
Washington Institute for Near East Policy delivers a speech entitled
"Whither the Middle East?"

2009: The third annual Kisufim Conference which aims to
"encourages encounters between Israeli creativity - in Hebrew and other
languages - and world Jewish creativity that is both multilingual and
multicultural," comes to an end.

2009: Screenwriter Steven Karras discusses and signs his
first book, The Enemy I Knew: German Jews in the Allied Military in World War
II, at the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, in Washington, D.C.

2009: The 20th Washington Jewish Film Festival includes a
screening of “Brothers,” a film that depicts the struggle of 2 brothers who
struggle to come to terms with their political and religious beliefs when they
reunite in Israel after years of silence.

2009: “Avatar,” the science fiction film co-produced by Jon
Landau premiered in London.

2009: The 24th Annual New York Israeli Film Festival includes
a screening of “Achziv,” a film that documents the unique story of Eli Avivi,
President of "Achziv Land," from the time of the War of Independence
when Eli appropriated a deserted Arab village called A'Ziv.

2009: The Israel Aerospace Industries made the first delivery
of the Heron UAV to the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) today. The ten
unmanned aerial vehicles will be used in Afghanistan in the coming weeks.

2009: The third annual Kisufim Conference, a series of
special workshops and meetings in Russian, English, French, Hungarian, Serbian
and Spanish which aims to "encourages encounters between Israeli
creativity - in Hebrew and other languages - and world Jewish creativity that
is both multilingual and multicultural," comes to an end in Jerusalem.

2009: A four day conference entitled "A Century of
Yiddish:1908-2008" came to a close in Jerusalem

1999(1st of Tevet, 5760): Rosh Chodesh is observed
for the last time in the 20th century.

2010: On Human Rights Day, the community is scheduled to hold
a ceremony that will remember the Soviet Jewry Struggle and commemorate the
40th Anniversary of the Washington, D.C. Vigil that became part of efforts to
make it possible for Russian Jews to leave the Soviet Union.

2010: Daniel Burman, who lives and works in Argentina as one
of its leading filmmakers today, and Jorge Gurvich, also an award-winning
filmmaker who left Argentina for Israel are scheduled to present a program
entitled “Argentina’s Jewish Community Through Filmmaker’s Eyes at the 21st
Washington Jewish Film Festival.

2010: The 12th annual Jerusalem Festival is scheduled to come
to a close. During this year’s festival, Frans Weisz, a Holocaust survivor who
directed “Polonaise” (1989), “Qui Vive” (2001) and “Happy End” (2007) – a
trilogy, about two Dutch Jewish families he co-wrote with playwright Judith
Herzbergrecipient received this year’s Life Achievement Award.

2010: U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Kadima
chairwoman and opposition leader Tzipi Livni at the State Department in
Washington today, only a few days after the U.S. and Israel announced that
talks between Jerusalem and Washington over a new freeze on West Bank settlement
construction in exchange for a set of U.S. guarantees had hit a dead end. The
meeting, initiated by Clinton, marks the first time that Livni has been invited
for a meeting with Clinton in Washington since Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu was elected in early 2009. Until now, the American officials had only
met with Livni in Israel, so as not to give the appearance of interfering in
Israel's internal politics.

2010: Rain began falling on different parts of Israel this
afternoon, beginning what was expected to be a stormy weekend. Tel Aviv
received its first raindrops early in the afternoon, along with Haifa, Netanya,
Ra'anana and Kfar Saba.

2010: Thousands of people participated in a march celebrating
International Human Rights Day in Tel Aviv this morning. Protesters were
marching against what demonstrators called "the racist anti-democratic
wave which is hitting Israel."

2010: Hundreds of people attended the funeral of former
Knesset speaker and Holocaust-survivor advocate Dov Shilansky at the Kiryat
Shaul Cemetery in Tel Aviv this morning. Shilansky served for 19 years as a
Likud member. The funeral was attended by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and
former and current Knesset members and ministers. Netanyahu eulogized at the
funeral, saying, "Dov believed that he was a remnant of the Jewish world
which was destroyed. He did everything to remember and remind, so that we would
not forget. Every man has a name, Dov, and you came with a good a name and left
with a good name. Being goodhearted was the main theme during his entire life.
You represent the community of Holocaust survivors, the heroes of hell who came
and built Israel.

2010: Memorial services were held this morning for Lawrence
E. “Larry” Gelf, the Professor-Emeritus in the Department of History at the
University of Iowa at Agudas Achim in Iowa City.

2011: As part of the Scholar-In-Residence Weekend at Touro
Synagogue in New Orleans, Dr. Ethan Bueno de Mesquita of the University of
Chicago is scheduled to lead the Shabbat Torah Study.

2011: Producer Aviva Kempner is scheduled to see the 2011
WJFF Visionary Award recipient at the 22nd Washington Jewish Film Festival
followed by a screening of her documentary “Partisans of Vilna” the theme of which
is "We will not allow them to take us like beasts to the slaughter."

2011:
The second round of weekend events that are part of Hamshoushalayim are
scheduled to end today.

2011:Israeli professor Dan Shechtman was
awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry in Stockholm today, and said that
scientists have many duties, including keeping an eye on politicians. "In
the real world, politicians decide for us, but we must always watch over
them," Shechtman said during his acceptance speech. Shechtman, a professor
at Haifa’s Technion Institute, received the prize, valued at approximately one
million Euros for cutting-edge work he did during the 1980s in the field of
crystallography (the study of crystals). The prize was given for his discovery
of atom patterns called quasicrystals, chemical structures previously thought
impossible. "It is our duty as scientists to promote education, rational
thinking and tolerance," Shechtman urged. "Science is the ultimate
tool to reveal the laws of nature and the one word written on its banner is
'truth'," he said. "The laws of nature are neither good nor bad. It
is the way in which we apply them to our world that makes the difference."
Up until Shechtman's discovery, scientists had thought the atom patterns inside
crystals had to repeat themselves. The Academy said Shechtman's discovery in
1982 fundamentally changed the way chemists look at solid matter. Shechtman
studied aluminum alloys, and found that they didn’t behave in a way solid
matter had previously been thought behave. As a result he discovered a
completely new class of solids. Israel has an impressive showing when it comes
to Nobel winners, with 10 laureates in its 63-year history. Most recently,
Israeli scientist Ada Yonath of the Weizmann Institute also won the Nobel Prize
in chemistry in 2009, for her work on the ribosomes. Shechtman also won the
Israel Prize in physics in 1998.

2012:The
Sephardic Music Festival is scheduled to continue today with performances by Zion
80,Hasidic New Wave with Yakar Rhythms, and Mika Karney

2012(26th
of Kislev, 5773): Zoltan Zinn-Collis, who was born at High Tatras in 1940 and
“was one of only five living survivors of the Holocaust in Ireland” passed away
today.2012:
The Washington Jewish Festival and the Hebrew Language Table are scheduled to
present a screening of “There Was Once,” a film by Gabor Kalman, the focuses on
the work of a high school teacher in Kalocsa, Hungary to teacher her students
about the once thriving and now non-existent Jewish community that existed in
their city.She does this against the
backdrop of a rising tide of right-wing extremism.

2012:
The Sephardic Scholar Series is scheduled to continue this year with a free
concert at the CUNY-Graduate Center with the New York Andalus Ensemble.

2012:
After nightfall, Jews worldwide will celebrate the third of the winter
festival’s eight nights at which time those in Jerusalem can see a Hanukkah
menorah made from the ornamental headgear of a soldier of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire.

2012:
The Palestinian Authority today granted
Hamas permission to mount a 25th anniversary celebration in the West Bank in
growing signs that Fatah and rival Hamas are working to end the five-year
schism between them, Ma'an News Agency reported.

2012:
Todayin Stockholm, the Royal Academy of Sciences is scheduled to
present the Nobel Prize in chemistry to Dr. Robert Lefkowitz, and the Nobel in
economics to Alvin Roth. (As reported by Mark Shulte

2013:
The JCC of Northern Virginia is scheduled to sponsor a reading and discussion
of The Reason I Jump by Naokj Higashida.

2013:
“The Congress” is scheduled to be shown at the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival.

2013:Keren Kayemet
LeIsrael-Jewish National Fund (KKL-JNF) is scheduled to begin distributing free
Christmas Trees at Nazareth.(This is
not a typo or a joke)

2013:
“Hundreds of
haredi men from radical sectors of the ultra-Orthodox community rallied once
again in Jerusalem tonight in protest at the ongoing detention of two yeshiva students
by the army, and against enlistment to the military and national service
programs in general.” (As reported by Jeremy Sharon)

2013:
“Emergency services across” Israel “were put on high alert as a major storm hit
the region which is expected to last through the weekend.Mt. Hermon is already experiencing high winds
and snow according to the Israel Metrological Service (As reported by Gavriel
Fiske)

2013:
Israeli-American chemists Arieh Warshel and Michael Levitt were officially
awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in a ceremony in Stockholm, Sweden,
today. The two, along with Martin Karplus, won the award “for the development
of multiscale models for complex chemical systems,” the Royal Swedish Academy
of Sciences said. (As reported by Adiv Sterman)

2014:
At the Historic 6th & I Synagogue is “Rabbi Shira” is scheduled
to present “What It Takes To Officiate at Your Friend’s Wedding.”

2014:
The IDF bolstered security measures across the West Bank this evening amid
fears that tensions could escalate after a senior Palestinian official died en
route to a Ramallah hospital earlier in the day following clashes with Israeli
troops.

2014:
“Poland’s constitutional court today overturned a ban on the ritual slaughter
of animals which had affected the Jewish and Muslim communities.”

2014:
Today, Israeli novelist Amos Oz saw “a film documenting the journey of Haifa
University historian Fania Oz-Salzberger, the author’s daughter, to the region
in north-western Ukraine, which was populated by more than 350,000 Jews on the
eve of World War II.”

2014:
“As part of its Righteous Among the Nations project, the Raanana Symphonette
Orchestra has commissioned an original orchestral piece, “His Finest Hour,”
from composer Moshe Zorman in tribute to Perlasca which will have its debut at
concert today in Raanana in the presence of Perlasca’s son Franco and
daughter-in-law Luciana Amadia.”

2014:
The Center for Jewish History is scheduled to sponsor a tour of its exhibition
“Echoes of the Borscht Belt: Contemporary Photographs by Marisa Scheinfeld

2015: The Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
is scheduled to host an evening with Dr. Danny M. Cohen, the author of Train “which follows the story of six
teenage who try to escape Nazi round-ups.”

2015: In Kensington, MD, Temple Emanuel is scheduled to
host a presentation by The Foundation for Jewish Studies “Home and
Homelessness: European Jews in 1948.”

2015: The Jewish Museum is scheduled to host “acclaimed
Israeli pianist Daniel Gortler as he presents a unique chamber music concert
featuring Brahms's Die schöne Magelone along with other 19th- and 20th- century
classics dedicated to the word.”

2015: Sheldon Adelson purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal

2015: The 92nd Street Y is scheduled to host “The
Poetry of Yehuda Amichai” a celebration of the poet and his works with Robert
Alter, Hana Amichai, Jonathan Galassi, Chana Kronfeld, Stanley Moss, Philip
Schultz and Leon Wieseltier.

2016:Nobel laureates including Bob Dylan are scheduled to
be honored today at ceremony on the anniversary of the death of Alfred Noble –
a ceremony that Dylan will not be attending but for which he has sent a speech
to be read aloud by somebody else.

For More Information...

For more information about the Weekly Torah Portion or the History of Jewish Civilization go to http://DownhomeDavarTorah.blogspot.com "This Day...In Jewish History " was originally developed as part of the study program for the Jewish History Study Group in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. There is no claim to originality or scholarship by the "editor", Mitchell A. Levin who is solely responsbile for the content. The sources, including texts and websites are too many and too varied to provide academic citations for each entry or part thereof.